The BBC has revealed the cost to the licence-fee payer of its surreal legal fight to keep a publicly available list from the public. Or at least a small part of the cost we all paid in the affair which became known as “28Gate”.

Regular readers will no doubt recall that 28Gate saw the Beeb attempt to keep secret the names of 28 people whom – it said – had convinced Auntie corporately that there was no longer any need to include sceptical viewpoints in its coverage of climate change. These folk were said to include “some of the best scientific experts”.

A hefty legal team was deployed to keep the “experts”‘ identities secret in the face of FOIA requests from blogger Tony Newbery (who represented himself) but in the end the names were discovered on the Wayback Machine, which had archived a webpage listing them all before their names and affiliations could be erased. (Curiously enough, the names had disappeared from the current version of that page – on the website of a green advocacy organisation – shortly after the FOI requests were received by the BBC.) As had been expected the secret 28 included few scientists of any repute, and plenty of green lobbyists and activists.

In response to two further FOI requests, the Corporation has now disclosed that the cost of hiring external help for the one-and-a-half day Information Tribunal hearing last October came to £22,746 including VAT. This breaks down to Kate Gallafent, of Blackstone Chambers who cost £13,875 (plus VAT) and Jonathan Scherbel-Ball, of One Brick Court who cost a paltry £4,780 (plus VAT).

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However, it’s merely the tip of the iceberg. The BBC says “the majority of Freedom of Information work is carried out in-house within the BBC” and “it does not hold information relating to the cost of in-house work”. Four BBC legal staff were present at the Tribunal alongside Gallafent and Scherbel-Ball, in order to fight off a blogger who was representing himself.

The serried BBC lawyers used a derogation, or opt-out, under the Freedom of Information Act that permits the Corporation to withhold information if it is required “for the purposes of journalism” – a clause designed to protect journalists from having to reveal their sources.

It subsequently emerged that the derogation has been broadly applied by the BBC’s legal team to withhold information from the public on a wide range of subjects, ranging from social media guidelines, to US income, to web site traffic. Even legal costs in previous FOI cases have been withheld using the “purposes of journalism” derogation. The latest misuse of the derogation sees the BBC refuse to name the judges of the Radio 2 Folk Awards.

This odd saga has another surreal twist.

After the identity of the 28 was unearthed, Newbery wrote to the BBC asking whether it would confirm the authenticity of the “Climate 28″ list. The BBC’s Caroline Hilditch sniffily replied: “the BBC is not required to disclose any information and will not be commenting on the list you have referred to.”

A heroic performance by the BBC legal team, then, from start to finish. ®

» How much "Man Made" CO2 Is In The Earth's Atmosphere?
I think ALL of the CO2 in the Earth's Atmosphere is from man.
I'm not sure how much "Man Made" CO2 is in the Earth's Atmosphere.
There is .04% CO2 in the Earth's Atmosphere and of that "Man" has added an extra 4% (1 part in 62,500)